Five
Nate watched Georgette climb the stairs to her room, head deferentially bowed. Once she passed her father, she lifted her skirts to ankle height and hurried up the rest of the flight, disappearing at the first landing.
It seemed strange to see her so cowed after the way her hazel eyes spat fire at him in the carriage. But then, plenty of peers in the House of Lords could attest to the intimidating presence of the Marquis of Yorkingham.
Why shouldn’t the peer seem just as intimidating to his daughter?
Nate’s chest ached strangely. It had been a mistake to kiss her on a whim. He was here to seduce her, and that sort of thing required planning and precision. All he’d done was put her on her guard.
And made his chest ache. He rubbed a palm across it, but the throb didn’t abate. He hadn’t expected to enjoy kissing her quite so much. It upset the devil’s bargain he’d made with himself. If he didn’t enjoy debauching this virgin, perhaps the act wouldn’t be counted as quite so despicable.
Instead his whole body pulsed with awareness when he was near Georgette, and this blasted tightness across his ribs danced on his last nerve. Obviously, he was going to enjoy bedding her far too much to rationalize it as a sacrifice he was prepared to make for the good of his family.
“Are you coming, Colton?” the marquis asked without looking back at him.
“Of course.” Nathaniel bounded up the steps till he came almost even with Lord Yorkingham. They marched together in companionable silence toward the marquis’s study.
The richly masculine room was paneled in dark walnut and smelled faintly of tobacco and fine cognac. Nathaniel’s father was always careful to keep those masculine pleasures confined to the smoking room at Colton House.
Rather than settle behind his throne-like desk, the marquis sank into one of the burgundy leather wing chairs. A pair of them flanked the fireplace, where an aromatic cherrywood fire blazed in the grate. He motioned for Nathaniel to take the other.
“Sit,” the marquis said when Nate didn’t comply quickly enough to suit him.
Nathaniel settled into the opposite chair and immediately sank into the cushion.
There was at least a couple inches difference in the heights of the two seats.
He was taller than the marquis when they were both standing, but now his lower seat reversed the situation neatly.
The effect was subtle, but anyone conversing with the marquis in these chairs would of necessity feel smaller.
“Thank you for receiving me, my lord.”
“Come, there’s no need to stand on ceremony between the two of us. Call me Yorkingham.”
“I’m honored.” Nathaniel nodded, surprised. The marquis was notorious for keeping people of lower rank at a distance. As a second son, Nate was almost beneath his notice. Except for their history together.
“After all, we were once almost family,” Yorkingham said, giving voice to Nate’s thoughts.
Anne. Her sprightly presence shimmered between them. The second daughter paired with a second son. At the time, their match was approved all around since the marquisate of Colton was a well-respected and ancient peerage and the families had been friendly for generations.
Of course, that was before the scandal of Maubeuge tainted Nathaniel’s reputation. And before scarlet fever had claimed his Anne.
“How have you been?” the marquis asked.
“I’m sure you know the answer to that question better than I do myself.”
A man of Yorkingham’s stature had a web of informants to keep him apprised of everything of note within the realm of England and beyond.
The marquis would know all about the disaster at Maubeuge, France, and about the way Nate had squandered his time since returning from that military debacle.
There was no point in trying to hide any of it.
“We all grieve in different ways,” the marquis said, steepling his fingers before him. “I do not reproach you. It’s natural for a young man to turn to pleasures in order to forget.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“I know.” Sadness made the corners of the marquis’s eyes droop.
“None of us have. When my marchioness isn’t decorating the house to within an inch of its life, she’s become a gardening fanatic, trying to pick up where Annie left off, I suppose.
I keep myself buried in the business of the House of Lords and the affairs of the estate, but there are days when…
” He waved a hand toward his desk with its piles of papers and reports.
“Well, it all seems rather pointless sometimes.”
Nate nodded in agreement. When Anne died, he almost hadn’t known how to keep breathing in a world where she did not. It was part of why he’d bought a commission and went blithely to war. Before the defeat at Maubeuge, his daring in the face of danger won him a long string of commendations.
Nathaniel didn’t consider himself brave. The truth was he hadn’t cared if he lived or died.
Why not accept the most risky assignments and hazard his life as often as possible? It had saved countless other men who had wives and sweethearts waiting for them.
“In some ways,” the marquis went on, “I believe Georgette has suffered most over her sister’s death.”
Nate’s brows shot up in surprise. “How so?”
“She survived the fever when Anne didn’t,” Yorkingham said, his gaze directed to the fireplace flames. “She feels guilty for living.”
Nate had heard that Georgette retired to the Yorkingham country estate to recuperate for a couple years afterward. It was just as well. She’d have been publicly shunned by Society at first in any case.
“So now my Georgie has launched this benighted campaign to do good for the downtrodden whores of Covent Garden.” The marquis shook his head. “Honestly, I fear for the girl’s mind sometimes.”
“I don’t,” Nate said. “Lady Georgette is perfectly sensible and whatever you might think of her methods, her goal is an admirable one. But I think she needs help directing her efforts so she doesn’t put herself at unnecessary risk.”
“Ah, now you’ve hit upon it. She needs protection, but if I hire a guard for her, she’ll rail against it and declare that I don’t trust her.”
“That sounds like her.” Nate smiled.
“You handle yourself well, Colton. The incident at Covent Garden this morning proves that.” The marquis leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Could you see your way clear to acting as her protector, without her knowledge, of course?”
“Today I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.” Nate’s conscience pricked at the lie, but it was going to have to bear far more later. “I rather doubt Lady Georgette would appreciate me spying on her.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I had in mind that you’d take up residence here at Yorkingham House. Join her in her public outings. Help her with her little crusade,” Lord Yorkingham suggested. “As a friend.”
“As a friend,” Nate repeated. Guilt reared its pointed little head again, but he tamped it down. This was just the opening Mr. Alcock would insist he exploit. “But what about the Duke of Cambridge? Might not His Highness frown upon your daughter spending so much time with another gentleman?”
“If it were anyone else but you, I’d say yes,” the marquis said. “However, but for ill chance, you would have been Georgette’s brother. I don’t think the duke’s emissary will complain when I explain matters to him.”
“I don’t know.” Nathaniel cast the marquis a doubtful glance.
Royal dukes were nothing if not territorial.
One seeking a virginal bride was bound to be extra vigilant about his intended’s activities.
And it wouldn’t do for Nate to jump too quickly at this chance, lest he arouse the marquis’s suspicions.
“Let me handle His Highness. Besides, it’s not as if the Season were in full swing.
Most of the ton is still in the country.
Only those of us heavily involved in Parliament and this whole sorry business surrounding Princess Charlotte’s unfortunate death are out and about here in London,” Yorkingham said.
“It’s not as if you’ll be seen together.
If I know Georgette, she’ll drag you to places not fit for Polite Society. ”
“You might simply put your foot down and demand she abandon her work.”
“If I thought it stood a ghost of a chance of success I would, but I know my daughter. If she’d been born a man, my Georgie would have been a general.” The marquis chuckled. “There’s no turning her once she’s set her sights on something. She’s like me in that regard.”
Yorkingham leaned back in his seat, his eyes shifting as if searching for the right words. “There’s another matter as well.”
“What is it?”
“It’s come to my attention that someone may be trying to sabotage Georgette’s chances with the Duke of Cambridge.”
The hair on the back of Nate’s neck rose. The marquis was very well informed indeed.
Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea who might dare that?”
“Not yet,” he acknowledged. “But I will keep digging. In the meantime, that is another danger from which Georgette needs protection. Can I count on you?”
Part of Nate wanted to confess all, then and there, to tell the man who would have been his father-in-law about Alcock’s plot. But if he did, his own family was sure to suffer. Alcock would make certain of it.
What a perfectly wicked little circle.
“Yes, sir.” Nathaniel stood and nodded correctly to the man he was deceiving. “I’ll protect Lady Georgette from whatever outside threats might assail her.”
Of course, no one will protect her from the inside threat—me.